Destiny

Rhapsody slept deeply and dreamlessly in the crook of Elynsynos’s arm that night. She had awakened many hours later, refreshed but still distressed. The great wyrm had regarded her with sympathy and concern.

  “There is something evil growing within you, Pretty,” she said seriously, fixing her multicolored gaze on Rhapsody’s tearstained face. “Right here.” The claw gently brushed her abdomen. “It feels wrong, unnatural, but that is all I can tell.”

  Rhapsody nodded. “I know.” She struggled to stand up. “I’ll go now.”

  The dragon shook her head, causing clouds of sand to spin around the cave, stinging Rhapsody’s sore eyes. “No; stay with me. Keep me company. What grows within you does not matter. Whatever must be done, I will help you.”

  The Singer smiled. “I know, I know you will. You already have. I haven’t had as much sleep in weeks as I had last night; thank you.”

  “It is strange to have a growing thing that is not of your own kind taking root inside you,” Elynsynos said, pulling Rhapsody into the crook of her arm again. “When I carried Merithyn’s children, it was a sad time for me. The body I was trapped in was so small, like yours, and they moved like moles within the earth, poking and kicking me, struggling to get out. It was horrible. I was so lonely, and I waited and watched each day, wishing he was here with me. He never came back, Pretty; he never knew he had made me with child.”

  Rhapsody stroked the scaly forearm. “It must have been awful. I’m so sorry, Elynsynos. I wish I could have been there for you. The Lirin have a song that they sing to women in the throes of childbirth to ease their pain.” Her eyes clouded over at the memory of Aria’s birth; she shook her head to drive the ghastly image out of her mind. The irony of how her own fate was now tied up with that experience was too much to bear.

  “But who will sing for you, Pretty?”

  She forced back the tears that struggled to break free. “No one,” she said softly. “No one will.”

  “That is why it is better to mate with a dragon,” Elynsynos said sensibly. “Then perhaps you can just lay eggs, like normal beasts do. It hurts a little more when they come out, but it is over much more quickly.” Rhapsody laughed in spite of herself.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Actually, if I live through this, I plan to. I’ve chosen a dragon for a mate, and he has agreed.” Anborn’s face swam before her rapidly drying eyes.

  The iridescent eyes twinkled. “Good. Then perhaps I will have children to play with again that are of my own bloodline.”

  “Perhaps.” Rhapsody looked away. She did not tell the dragon about her arrangement with Achmed.

  Rhapsody stayed several days with Elynsynos, sleeping peacefully, growing strong again in the magical lair. She sang her the ocean songs the sea Lirin had taught her, getting drenched by the dragon’s reminiscent tears. She also showed her the crown. Elynsynos was fascinated with the diadem, endeavoring to catch the whirling stars that spun around Rhapsody’s head, entranced like an infant captivated by an especially shiny toy.

  The dragon was delighted that she was about to call the Cymrian Council, and spent long hours telling her stories about the early days of the First Fleet. She had taken great pride in the accomplishments of the Cymrians in those times, despite mourning her loss of Merithyn, whom she spoke of often.

  Rhapsody smiled each time Elynsynos repeated the same story. Merithyn and Elynsynos’s time as lovers had been brief, and the dragon’s lifetime long, so there were only so many tales to tell, each kept like a cherished treasure. When the prismatic eyes grew soft in memory, Rhapsody thought back to Anborn’s cynical comments about his grandparents; obviously he had not gotten to know Elynsynos at all. Whatever else she felt toward anything, it was impossible to miss the depth of the love the dragon had felt for her lost sailor. Its poignancy made Rhapsody’s heart ache.

  The brimstone heat from the dragon’s breath stirred her memory, and an image arose in her mind of another night, long ago, in the shadows of a crackling campfire.

  So that’s why I say you may have a problem, Ashe had said, hidden within the misty fold of his cloak, watching her intently from across the fire. If you are a later-generation Cymrian, you will be extraordinarily long-lived, and you will undoubtedly face what others did: the prospect of watching those you love grow old and die in what seems like a brief moment in your life. And if you are a First Generation Cymrian, it will be even worse, because unless you are killed outright you will never die. Imagine losing people over and over, your lovers, your spouse, your children—

  Stop it.

  As Ashe’s words about immortality rang in her ears; Rhapsody wondered if she herself would be destined to endlessly relive the same few happy moments she had with him as well. Then she remembered the demon’s words.

  You will be a wonderful mother, Rhapsody, at least while the child is in your womb. It’s a shame that you won’t live through the delivery.

  Perhaps a lonely immortality was not so much of a threat after all.

  I doubt I will even live to see the end of what is coming now, let alone forever.

  Achmed’s voice spoke to her in the darkness of her memory.

  He’s damned, like the polluted Earth. She hurtles through the ether, bound even the gods don’t know where, carrying inside, deep in her heart, the first and last Sleeping Child, the burden whose birth may be its mother’s ending.

  As am I, she thought morosely.

  When finally Rhapsody left the lair of the lost sea to head off on her last mission to unite the people of this new land, Elynsynos wept.

  After several weeks of furious, mindless travel, the rising sun found Rhapsody sitting on the crest of the cwm. The Great Moot of the Cymrian Council had once been a glacial lake, formed by the freezing and thawing of ice on the mountain faces of the Teeth when they were young. The glacier had carved the Bowl of the Moot as a vessel for the melting tears of the great wall of moving ice. As the land warmed, the lake had sunk into the earth or sent its water skyward, dried by the sun, leaving the amphitheater hewn into the mountainside. It was a place of deep power, and Rhapsody could feel it now as she sat on its brow, looking around the Bowl, watching the dawn fill the Moot with rosy light.

  Spring had come while she was in the dragon’s lair; she had emerged to find the snow all but gone, the trees in the advent of full bud. The desolate dust that was the floor of the Bowl in the height of summer was now green and lush, with new spring grass forming a verdant carpet along the floor and up into the terraced sides. It waited, having been deserted for centuries, as if in anticipation.

  When the intense gold light of the top slice of the sun crested the horizon Rhapsody glanced behind her, having felt shadows fall on her shoulders. It was the other two-thirds of the Three; they had remembered to come.

  They stood in silence behind her, looking around. She remained where she sat, watching the morning light come to the strange outcroppings of rocks that formed the natural features of the Moot. Gwylliam’s manuscripts had mentioned the two most significant characteristics. The first was the Speaker’s Rise, a towering pulpit sculpted from the limestone by what must have been a twisted blanket of ice millions of years before. As a result of the inconsistent erosion it had a curving natural pathway that spiraled to the top where a speaker could stand erect and be seen by the entire assemblage. In addition, that speaker could be heard clearly all around the Moot, owing to the intrinsic acoustics of the place.

  The second attribute was known as the Summoner’s Ledge. It was a long, wide horizontal sheet of slate, flat but for a vertical rock outcropping that resembled a pulpit, balanced between two great slabs of rock, at the summit of the tallest of the bordering hills around the Bowl. From this vantage point someone could see all of the vast Orlandan plain stretching out at his feet, as well as the entirety of the Bowl, with the shadow of the Teeth at his back. It was the best possible point at which to sound a call that would echo over the land and beyond, vibrating within the earth
itself, to reach the ears of those whose past and future was tied to the horn. Rhapsody shuddered; it was a long climb up to the unstable-looking place, and a longer fall down from it.

  The Bowl itself was immense, larger than the gambling complex in Sorbold. What nature had not sculpted into the geologic bowl, the Cymrians had, although so many centuries had passed since it had been used as a gathering place that it was difficult to discern what was the work of natural forces and what was the work of man. A series of rising ledges had been hewn into the earth around the circumference of the Bowl, following the glacier’s lines, to allow seating for tens of thousands. Enormous wedges had been cut from some areas of the Bowl’s side to give access and egress from the arena. Though overgrown and forgotten by all but Time, it was the perfect place for a convocation. The air within it hung heavy with moisture and foreboding.

  “Well? Are ya ready, Duchess?” The low rumble of the Sergeant’s voice rent the air and shattered the heavy silence.

  “I suppose so,” she said, looking east to where the bottom rim of the sun was just clearing the mountain.

  “That’s inspiring,” said Achmed with a wry smile. “You’re acting as the Summoner, and you’re not even certain you want to do it? Why are we bothering?”

  “Because it’s time,” said Rhapsody with a long sigh as she rose. “Roland is a land ripe for war, as is Sorbold. The Lirin are united, but there is no one leader who can guarantee a treaty with them on behalf of the human realms. The only place not on the verge of bloodshed is Ylorc.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Oi think it’s sad,” said Grunthor with a melancholy tone in his voice. “Oi finally got myself an army to be proud of, and no one wants to come out and play.”

  Rhapsody patted his shoulder. “Well, think of it this way, Grunthor; if the Cymrians do select a Lord and Lady, and do as good a job of it as they did before, you should have lots of opportunity for armed conflict, and with a bigger, more powerful opponent; you’ll have everyone in Roland, Sorbold, Tyrian, and possibly the Nonaligned States as well to play with.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  “Well, let’s begin the show,” Achmed said. He handed Rhapsody the slim box that contained the Cymrian horn.

  Rhapsody’s eyes twinkled in the clear morning light. “Now, that would be Doctor Achmed’s Traveling Snake Show, if I’m not mistaken.” She cast a glance at Grunthor; it was a reference he had made on the Root long ago. The giant Bolg grinned.

  She opened the box and carefully took out the horn, then began the slow, careful climb to the top of the Summoner’s Ledge, its stone pulpit casting a long shadow in the morning light.

  Achmed and Grunthor followed her up, and the Three stood in awe for a moment, mesmerized by the view from the Ledge. From the observatory at the top peak of the Teeth the world had appeared at their feet; now, as they stood on the high rim of the Bowl, it still stretched out below them, but it was impossible to feel distanced from it, as one did in the mountains. As far as the eye could see a fertile panorama swept out before them, the landscape turning from brown to chartreuse almost before their eyes. It was a stunning sight, and to Rhapsody a humbling one. A high wind blew across the plain below them and over the Ledge around them; it was a cleansing wind, strong and cold, carrying with it a scent of hope and destiny. She closed her eyes, raised the horn to her lips, and sounded it.

  A silver blast, like a bugle call but richer, shattered the air and the stillness of the morning. It reverberated off the Teeth and the hills below, rolling in a wave of music over the land, spreading like the ripples in a pond. Rhapsody could feel the music ringing through her, forming a bond from her feet through the stone she stood on, which in turn echoed through the Bowl itself.

  Suddenly she understood why she needed to remain within Canrif. The Summoner was the instrument through which the horn tapped into the power of the Moot. It was much like the call she had sent on the wind to Ashe long ago, the summons that brought him to Elysian, to her. The horn issued a compelling invitation, tied to the person who winded it. The Summoner was the directional point, much as the gazebo in Elysian had been. By the Summorer’s remaining within the range of the Bowl the vibration was sustained, and the call held constant until all the Cymrians had arrived, an invisible thread they could follow to find Canrif again, wrapped inexorably around each of their hearts.

  Rhapsody closed her eyes. She was tied to the call, and her mind followed it as it spread through the earth and the air, ringing across the Orlandan Plateau and into the hilly steppes and deserts of Sorbold. It sang through the current of the Tar’afel and into the forests of Gwynwood and Tyrian, washing over the sea and crashing with the ocean waves on the shores of Manosse, a thousand leagues away.

  It spread like the touch of the king, back toward every soul that had made promise on that horn in the old land, before terrible voyages, before wandering in the wilderness, before the new empire, before death and war. The great horn sounded only at first on its own glory in the air; then it seemed to fade, as any blast will. But Rhapsody was carried at the beginning of its wave, and she heard it take new shapes, possess what the ancient magic must have deemed its own.

  It moved from hand to hand in the spark of coins, in the drum of ax against tree, in the mule driver’s call and snap of the whip. It rumbled through messengers’ hoofbeats and whispered in hunters’ arrows. It inhabited the creak of saddle and mast and axle, the grunt of livestock, the wheedle of merchants, the ring of smithies and whistle of sails, and carried the call of the builder king back to each drop of blood sworn in fealty to his exodus and venture more than a thousand years before. The call rolled and flew, reached over the entire conquered continent to drag and beckon fulfillment of the oath.

  Every brick laid in his service, every nail driven, every artifact and monument echoed and hummed the call, so that when night fell, the imperative silence would make everything still, wolves, water, wind. The summons of Gwylliam’s horn drove away the exhaustion of age-frozen survivors of those early voyages. Tired eyes suddenly shone their way out of dementia; breath of purpose entered the breasts of resigned patriarchs; ancient, stiffened fingers flexed for the feel of ancient swords.

  Those who had made the vow originally felt rather than heard it, the king’s presence. They stood first, interrupted their meals, their counsels, their baths. As if his scent and genius had entered, the sensation passed from father to son like a gesture, in a moment of silence to recall, reclaim the lost memory. It took the huge quietude to determine that they had been called to a pilgrimage.

  Those who had no blood ties to the Cymrians were at a loss, wondering what had transpired to make the Earth, for one brief moment, stop in its path….

  While Rhapsody’s vision traveled at the front of the wave of sound, singing from goat bells, rasping in the purl of hoe pulling earth, Achmed was being driven mad feeling the air reconstructed around him. The thready curtains of wind he routinely saw and passed through thickened into ethereal kelp, entangling, pulling, adhering, leaving him short of breath, swimming where he should have been walking. The sound was not just a ripple, but a palpability, drawing in, as if the Moot had become a huge maw, a wyrm anglerfish drawing every particle in. Rhapsody was the luminescent center, the bait, and he reeled, unsteady, plankton-sized and drifting beneath the call of the Great Seal that reached perhaps beyond where the daylight touched.

  Grunthor too felt rather than heard the sound, but he did not react to the airborne pulse of the call. He followed the echo through the earth. Like a tremor clawing its way from a wrenching fault, it crawled and twisted across the plains, a concentric serpent buried and on fire. It raged and pounded, blaring through the mountain behind them, stentorian and shrieking, as if every voice, every utterance had been peeled from the cave walls and released into the air again, but still with nowhere to go.

  Rhapsody looked lost and distant; Achmed crouched, leaning against the stone of the platform, and Grunthor stood with his pal
ms over his ears, his eyes shut tight, when the silence arrived. As disturbing and insistent as the shout of the horn had been, its wait for response pinched harder. It turned Achmed’s vision of water to ice.

  Across the sea at the farthest twilight soundrise of the call, Rhapsody felt the few hundreds of remaining Cymrians who had actually laid hands and oaths on the Great Seal stop breathing, stop living, as though they had been moving into the everyday futures of their lives when an invisible leash from their past had pulled them up short. Some few actually perished, from fear, or relief. The rest took up breathing again, but the conversations that had been interrupted would never resume. Each of the First Generation turned as a body to acknowledge the call and their debt. In a thousand years, this was only the second time they had heard it.

  Those original Cymrians received the call first, but sons listening to fathers, daughters tending to mothers, felt their answer to the elders’ moment of pause only momentarily later, in the time of a short intake of breath. Each of fifty generations felt it in their turn, as insistent as the need to slake thirst, satisfy hunger, make water, sleep, or yield to death. The straighter, purer family lines tasted the journey to come, moved in unison to prepare, and knew what might lie at the end. Some had even been told that the call might come, of how it had come to terror and ruin before, but how they were destined to answer it regardless, since what they had been offered for the ancient pledge was the only chance at life.

  Bastard lines, deeply mixed genealogies, individuals with no lore and less concern about their heritage were compelled no less deeply. The first embers in the blood itched and scored vessel walls, struck like cloud-soft lightning, chewed delay and resolve so that a matter of hours or days perhaps stood between the unknowing descendant and his journey. All across the continent, men, women and children began the pilgrimage, thralls to a dead tyrant.

  The youngest of all the Cymrian lines heard the call last. Being short-lived, most of them were a full fifty generations removed, but they possessed two advantages. The first was culture; nomads and scavengers by nature, they felt little resistance to the impulse to follow the call. The second was proximity; they already inhabited the catacombs beneath the Teeth.